This is something I am going to grant you in principle because early Lara Croft is fantastic for these reasons: both sexy and powerful. Nothing wrong with being sexy and powerful when you are the engine of your own agency.

Samus's sex has never been treated that way, though. It' a reward for players, which serves to commodify Samus's body at the same time that it removes the player from being Samus, which goes against the idea of assuming the role of the character altogether.

Are you just not comfortable playing as a female protagonist?

There is nothing male or female about Samus in her suit. That's the beauty of the character. When given a faceless or voiceless hero in video games, we assume they are male because in video games masculinity is the default state of being. Samus turns that on its head while maintaining immersion for players.

No, nothing like that. Game character and story don't matter to me because it's a projection of self, but I wanted to reconcile why other people who write/talk about the game were obsessed over Samus being female, yet emphasising female aspects of her character weakened Other M. Your post explains this.

What I like so much about Prime is that the story got out of the player's way so they could tell their own story by playing.

So in this context, her incidental sexualization throughout, say, Other M or Zero Mission is less egregious than making it a reward (as in other games)?

Rol said it better than i could. It's like getting different sized mansions at the end of Luigi's Mansion. Such an incentive makes no statement about, say, the virtues of homeownership, nor does getting Samus in different degrees of (and i really hate to use this term) undress necessarily make her a sex object.

Now, if she were posing, or if they were showing something more provocative than a bit of midriff, i might be inclined to agree, but as it is, they're showing a woman who is, for all intents and in-context purposes, clothed in a practical manner, except for the bikini in the original game, but that can be excused via hardware limitations.

Oh, I see. I apologize for being presumptive, and am glad that I could lend some context to that.

I'll get to Rol in a minute; I'm going to have to rip him a new ass in order to make the point he needs, but I think I can communicate myself more easily here.

1. I'm going to point out that the progression of Samus's undergarments goes Space Swimsuit -> Tank top and panties -> space tank top and panties -> space tank top and booty shorts -> basically naked but painted blue. There are various shades to that, of course, since Zero Mission had about a zillion different undressed states to see her in.

2. Do you agree that they use Samus's sex as a reward to encourage high-level play in Metroid, Return of Samus, Super Metroid, Zero Mission, and Metroid Fusion?

Great piece. Keep the good job.

The more I read these types of articles, and then go out into the real world, and then read more of these articles, and then go out into the real world again, rinse and repeat...

The more I feel like this is pointless nerd arguing. Have you guys stepped outside, gone to the mall, beach, or a party and seen what females in our society are like?

That point aside, sexual desires form the very basic of our survival and of course they'll be easy to trigger and easy to sell. Almost all industries use this to sell (even shampoo for girls!) and here we are worrying about a full-bodied blue suit that, while tight, shows 0.5% of her body's skin.

I just don't "get" this politically correct movement in video games. If you want to change something, change it in society. But good luck changing human beings to reject sexual temptation in both buyers and sellers.

Also, one last point, the money will dictate where the funds go. If people want the industry to change, they need to monetarily SUPPORT that change. You don't change an industry by whining and making a new sexism article every week. You do it by not financially supporting those games, and then supporting games that do instead support the ideals you want to succeed.

So did you even read what I wrote up there, or...

I'm married and I care a lot about gender issues in all iterations that they take on over time. It's one of the consequences of my life choices that I have gotten to know lots of strangers, many of them women, and I have tried to be very open about issues that affect representation on various levels.

There is nothing "politically correct" in what I was writing. This is a discussion about the nature of the faceless/voiceless protagonist and how that's undermined in two key ways by using Samus's body as incentive for high-level play. More, it's about why the original Metroid Prime hit the perfect note for this character, cementing that particular iteration of her as the ultimate example of the faceless hero archetype.

All changes begin with discussion, and encouraging people to not discuss something is measurably worse than just staying out of it.

http://www.gamrreview.com/article/89151/devils-advocate-sexism-in-videogames/ Is this an article you would agree with?